St. Gilles

Friday 15 June midday

This past night was the last one Lara spent at home, with me. I feel completely at peace with her being there. I kept on soft lighting and music for most of the evening before I went to sleep myself. I try and enjoy her presence because I know the next morning people will come and take her away.

At a quarter to nine, the funeral parlor calls to say their men are already in position and could they come in a little early? I am ready, I tell them.

I retreat into my office and a few minutes later they call me over, after they have placed Lara's body in her coffin. Lara's coffin, as per her instructions, is as simple as they come, a light wood construction, simple lining, no embellishments, a makeshift handwritten sticker on the foot-end, bearing her name: Lara Gabriel van Dongen. (She is still part of me even in death.) Flowers brought by friends the day before have been placed upon her body. Only her face and chest are visible, the rest of her body being covered by a shroud (gaine). I take a few pictures for relatives in California who are far away from all of this. Then I go out again while the two men close the shroud and put a lace cover over it all.

At their signal, I walk up to the coffin again. The men retreat discretely. This is really the hardest moment, since I can no longer see her, just the lace cover. I allow myself some sincere sobs, pacing around the coffin. Then I take a bottle of Chanel No. 19 standing at the ready; it is the perfume that really defines Lara, and people recognize her scent from opening her wardrobes. I spray a few whiffs onto the lace cover, realizing full well how futile the gesture and how irrational the motive. But Lara would appreciate it - and that is what matters ultimately.

Then I watch as the two undertakers place the wooden lid onto the coffin, and secure it with ten long Parker screws, turned in place by a power tool, and each capped with a little ornamental rosette. Still all very frugal. Then they cover the coffin with a protective quilt.

Lara had asked me to promise time and again I would make absolutely sure that she was positively dead before closing the coffin, for she didn't care having any adventures knocking on the inside of the lid - so great was her fear of suffocation. Moreover, for a claustrophobic like Lara, being in a coffin must be the ultimate nightmare. Houdini would have had trouble getting out of this one. I figured that with two doctors pronouncing her dead and giving her over 48 hours to resurrect herself, my promise to her had been duly honored.

I didn't want to look at how they put the coffin upright in the elevator - the only way to get her downstairs - but waited on the groundfloor. The coffin was slid into the waiting hearse (a Mercedes) and we proceeded to the cemetary of St. Gilles, with traffic and rain a little under half an hour away. I felt at peace being in the company of Lara on her last journey.

In the funerarium I requested to be shown where they would keep Lara for the next four days and nights, thus fulfilling yet another promise she had me make: make sure that I don't end up in one of these giant drawers you see on television. Normally, clients are not shown the technical rooms but I insisted. The room measures about 4x4 meters, is light and modern and I suppose sufficiently refrigerated. There was only one coffin in there at the time.

They explained to me that cremation (incineration) is scheduled for Tuesday morning 19 June at 10:00AM in the adjoining public crematorium. On that day, I will be ushered into a salle d'attente at 9:45AM and be left alone with Lara and her coffin, while at my request some Haydn symphonies will softly envelop the moment. I will place three red long-stemmed roses on the coffin and use up the alotted 15 minutes, until they will come and wheel her away to les installations.

Incineration takes two hours, and I have decided to not wait up for it. I would hate biding my time in the cafetaria while peering out the window at the crematorium's smoke stack and wonder what I am looking at. The undertaker will hand-deliver the ashes the next day at our apartment. I will place the metal cannister in the unused fireplace in our living room, until further disposition.